Red

Learn how to play Red on one acoustic guitar!

This song is in the key of E major and only uses the I, IV, V and VI chords throughout the entire song.

To spice things up and compensate for the lack of huge production, open strings have been incorporated into the one guitar arrangement. These open strings create some unique extensions to the chords.

Chord progression

The intro/instrumental section is only an E with an added 9th in every other bar, like this.

| E | Eadd9 |

The verse is simple, only moving between A and E, spiced up with a couple of extensions, like this.

| Asus2 | Asus2 | E Eadd9 | E | x2

The bridge introduces some new chords, taking the song to chord VI for the first time, like this.

| C#m | Bsus4 | Asus2 | Asus2 | x2

The chorus is very similar to the verse, just swapped around with a VI chord snuck in.

| E | E | C#m | A | x2
| E Eadd9 | E Eadd9 |

There are another couple of chord progressions in the song before the m8 and during the outro, you’ll get all of them as well as full TAB of what happens in the video lesson when you take the full course.

Extend chords using open strings

Some of the chords in ‘Red’ have been extended.

Using the same open strings throughout, we get different extensions depending on which chord is used. For example, the C#m with an open B and E string produces a C#m7, but over an A chord, you get an add9.

You’ll get to the bottom of this concept when you take the intermediate course which is great as it can be applied to other songs too.